Interview with Čedomir PrlinčevićFormerly the Chief Archivist of Kosovo and President of the Jewish
Community of Priština; driven from Kosovo by KLA terrorists in 1999

Interviewer: Jared Israel
Translator: Petar Makara

[Posted 3 December 2000 * New introduction, 4 April 2006]

========================================

Introduction

This is the second Emperor's Clothes interview with
Čedomir Prlinčević (pronounced Ched-o-meer Pra-linch-eh-vich).

Mr. Prlinčević, an historian, was chief archivist in Priština, capital
of Kosovo,
and head of the Jewish community there until, as he explained in his
first Emperor's Clothes interview, the terrorist KLA drove him and his
family and thousands of others from their homes. Heavily armed British NATO forces stood
by, watching the terror, ignoring the Yugoslavs' pleas for help. You can
read that interview athttp://emperors-clothes.com/interviews/cedda.htm

In his second interview, Mr. Prlinčević gave an in-depth answer to my
question, "Why did Albanians flee Kosovo in large numbers at the start
of NATO bombing?"

The media claimed the Albanians were fleeing Serbian terror. NATO
bombing was portrayed as a reaction to supposed Serb terror.

Some anti-Serb leftists, notably Noam Chomsky, made a fake criticism of
NATO, saying that the Albanians had indeed fled Serbian terror, but this
was NATO's fault because the Serbs instituted their anti-Albanian reign
of terror in response to the NATO bombing, as NATO knew they would. I
say this was a fake criticism of NATO because Chomsky endorsed the
NATO/media attack on the Serbs while posing as their defender. As in, "Yes! He beat his wife! But you drove him to it!" I argued with
Chomsky about this. Our email exchange is published at
http://emperors-clothes.com/yr/chomsky.htm

I and others in the antiwar movement thought the Albanians must have
fled for the same reason many Serbs fled - to escape the bombs.

But Mr. Prlinčević says all these explanations were wrong.
Something else was at work here: the manipulation by Western military and
intelligence organizations of certain aspects of Albanian culture, both
to create the terrorist apparatus known as the KLA and to stage public
dramas, especially the mass Albanian flight in April 1999, which dramas were
then used by the
media to smear the Serbs as war criminals.

There's a lot in this interview. As you will see, at first I had trouble understanding what Mr.
Prlinčević was getting at. This was for two
reasons: a) because I held onto the fixed idea that Albanian flight was a
response to NATO bombing; and because Mr. Prlinčević was hesitant to
speak frankly about Albanian culture, lest he appear culturally
insensitive. But we cannot afford to ignore the features of clan-based
cultures, whether in Kosovo or in the Middle East, that make them
susceptible to manipulation by unscrupulous forces for nightmarish
geopolitical goals. The points which Mr. Prlinčević finally explained,
and explained clearly, can help us understand, by extension, how Western
military/intelligence forces can manipulate such groups around the
world.

Jared Israel:Why did
so many Albanians leave Kosovo a few days after NATO began bombing? Was
the Yugoslav Army attacking them?

Čedomir Prlinčević:No, not attacking them. In some areas the
Army did relocate people, but not out of Kosovo. The idea was to move
them further into Serbia. You must understand, the Army was presented
with a most difficult situation. A major clash was expected between NATO
and Yugoslav troops. This kind of NATO ground attack was a special
threat in the area [of Kosovo] bordering Albania.

Under those circumstances, with the KLA [Kosovo Liberation Army]
attacking inside Kosovo and from Albania and with NATO poised to invade
and about to start bombing from airplanes, how could the Yugoslav Army
hope to protect that border population?

You should understand, the Army had had an experience like this in
Vukovar. That was in 1991. Civilians were trapped in a battlefield
between the Army and the Croatian Ustaše [neo-fascist] secessionists.
To avoid making the same mistake again, the Army wanted to empty a space
40 kilometers deep so people wouldn't be trapped between the Army, NATO
and the KLA.

At the same time there was a big increase in the number of KLA
terrorists illegally crossing the Albanian border into Kosovo. In that
situation there were bound to be some unhappy events. It was a most
difficult situation, you see.

=======================================

Albanians Assassinated

=======================================

Israel: Was this at the beginning of the
bombing?

Prlinčević: Yes, and earlier too. During this period, the
Yugoslav government tried to organize local Albanian Crisis Centers to
distribute humanitarian aid, and also a Headquarters to work with the
Yugoslav Army, organizing ethnic Albanians who lived in the danger zone
to move deeper into Serbia, away from potential fighting. But those
ethnic Albanians who did cooperate with the Army became a target for the
KLA. Many were assassinated.

Israel: Were these Crisis Centers located all over Kosovo or just
near the Albanian border?

Prlinčević: Mostly near the border. The Crisis Centers distributed
humanitarian help from all over Serbia. For example there was food and
building materials to repair homes from the North, from Vojvodina.
People sent blankets, food, clothing, everything.

=======================================

Ordinary Western citizens misunderstand Albanian
culture

=======================================

Israel: Getting back to the Albanian exodus during the bombing, here's
the question: if the Yugoslav Army didn't throw the Albanians out, why
did so many leave? It's true we don't know the exact number. The Western
media has given all sorts of figures, from 150,000 to over a million,
which is slightly ridiculous - but certainly many thousands did leave.
Why? To escape the bombs?

Prlinčević: Not exactly.

Israel: Not exactly?

Prlinčević: No. The reason they left and went out of Serbia, to Albania
or Macedonia, is rooted in the cultural history of Albanian people
living in Kosovo. Because of their mindset, which I think people in the
West thoroughly misunderstand, the KLA had a big impact when it attacked
and executed Albanians who cooperated with the government.

Israel: I would have thought such attacks would turn them against the
KLA.

Prlinčević: No, no. They led the ethnic Albanian population to stop
cooperating with the Yugoslav government and start cooperating with the
KLA.

Israel: Doesn't a guerilla movement need to treat ordinary people
decently to get support?

Prlinčević: Yes, but the KLA was never what you mean by a guerilla
movement. It was a foreign-organized group of terrorists delivering a
message. The so-called 'International Community,' that is, NATO, had
trumpeted that they had plans for the Albanians, that they would give
them independence and a Greater Albania, make them a major power in
southern Europe. So there was this intense propaganda from the West for
ten years and at the same time the crisis in the Albanian community was
quite pronounced. Even before the bombing, some Albanian representatives
asked the Yugoslav government to allow their people to form convoys and
go toward Macedonia, basically to save themselves from this crisis.

Israel: What crisis? The fighting between the Yugoslav Army and the KLA?

Prlinčević: Not exactly, although this fighting did have a big effect.
So did the bombing, which started a bit later; it had a critical
psychological effect. But this was related to the KLA. You see the KLA
was trying to fulfill their own overall goals. To achieve these goals,
which involved proving to the West they could deliver, they told the
ethnic Albanians to leave. And this was not a polite request. It was an
order. Do you see? At the same time the KLA, their special units, and
then a bit later NATO bombers, were attacking traffic on important roads
that led to inner Serbia.

Israel: And this influenced the Albanians?

Prlinčević: Yes. It dissuaded them from going further into Serbia and it
also told them: Yugoslavia can't help you. Meanwhile the United States
was training their KLA proxies in Albania including in how to wage this
sort of psychological warfare, to deliver the message that Albanians
should temporarily vacate Serbia.

Israel: So you're saying that this culture, this Kosovo Albanian
culture, had a strong tendency to respond to carrots and sticks?

Prlinčević: That's it. Now you're beginning to understand.

Israel: And the U.S. was telling Albanians, "We'll help you secede;
we'll make you a star. But if you reject our help we'll kill you." Is
that it?

Prlinčević: Your question is complex. I'll have to give a long answer.

Israel: OK.

Prlinčević: Historically, the Kosovo Albanians were never involved in
frontal battles. Instead, they had groups of warriors called kachatzi,
small bands of fighters that used hit and run tactics. But they never
kept large scale weapons to use in frontline war. Part of the purpose of
the Western training was to get the KLA to surpass small group combat
and become an army able to carry out NATO's commands throughout Kosovo.
NATO's foot soldiers.

To this end, one KLA group left Kosovo and went to Albania where they
were trained by the Americans, and by the way, they became the core of
what is now called the Kosovo Protection Corps. They marched back into
Kosovo with NATO in June 1999 and seized government offices and
facilities and drove out hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Roma
['Gypsies'], Jews, pro-Yugoslav Albanians and others.

Israel: You're saying that after NATO took over Kosovo these KLA types
were under orders to drive out those people?

Prlinčević: Yes. We can see the results of the action of exactly those
forces today. NATO planned the expulsion of 350,000 people. Without
NATO's approval and instructions, these KLA, whom NATO had trained and
brought back to Kosovo, would never have attempted this mass expulsion.
Impossible. NATO was eliminating a potentially rebellious population.

And remember, they didn't expel only non-Albanians. Perhaps the most
important group was Albanians who in any official capacity had helped
the Yugoslav government. They had to go. NATO wanted the ethnic
Albanians who stayed in Kosovo to be without a Yugoslav alternative.

Israel: So this first wave of Albanians who marched across the border
with the KFOR [i.e., NATO in Kosovo] troops - they were hardcore KLA? Not simply
gangsters?

Prlinčević: Well some were KLA gangsters and others were ordinary
gangsters from Albania. They carried out and allowed others to carry out
all kinds of crimes. Some wanted revenge; some wanted to steal; some
wanted to do this; some wanted to do that, to achieve whatever political
goals. And no one was interrupting the others. They were doing it
altogether in concert and not interfering with each other.

Israel: They were all KLA? There were no mysterious elements here? KFOR
claims mysterious elements carried out (and still carry out) these
crimes.

Prlinčević: KFOR knows exactly who organized the expulsions, but of
course, as it became clear to ethnic Albanians that KFOR would tolerate
criminal actions carried out by the KLA, KLA crime became a mass
phenomenon. Whoever was doing criminal stuff would use the KLA label. If
someone would steal some Serb's car, he would say: "I'm KLA." It got to
be a joke among Albanians to call themselves 'KLA', to cover up. If
someone wanted to rob someone else's house, they would say - "We're
KLA."

Israel: Because they knew that KFOR wouldn't touch them if they were
KLA?

Prlinčević: Yes, they became untouchable.

Israel: Getting back to the period up to the bombing: You were
saying that in this area along the border two things were going on: The
army was trying to get those people out of the potential fire zone plus
they were organizing local Albanians for self-defense. But at the same
time a section of Albanians had been organized by the other side, by the
KLA. So they were having a contest for the hearts of the ethnic
Albanians?

Prlinčević: Yes. At first the Yugoslav government felt confident that
they'd succeed in getting the Albanian population to organize to defend
itself from the KLA. The attempt to do this started during the
Rambouillet talks, in the winter of 1999, before the bombing.

Israel: My impression is that the KLA had a weak base during this
period. Is that true?

Prlinčević: Yes, but remember there was a continuous influx of their
people from Albania. So they had weak popular support but they were
getting reinforcements from Albania, trying to turn the tide.

Israel: Which is why there were constant border clashes with Yugoslav
troops fighting these intruders.

Prlinčević: Right.

Israel: So the KLA's solid base was in northern Albania?

Prlinčević: At that time, yes. But the Yugoslav Government program of
self defense failed in the border area and then gradually throughout
Kosovo people switched to the KLA side.

Israel: During the bombing was the KLA used as spotters for NATO air
attacks?

Prlinčević: Yes. Definitely.

Israel: Was the bombing used to drive Albanians out of Kosovo?

Prlinčević: Not mainly on its own, but yes, insofar as it reinforced the
KLA's attempt to destabilize the area. Mr. Walker was the one who was
organizing the KLA. Mr. Walker of the Verification Mission that came
into Kosovo, under the OSCE [Organization for Security and Cooperation
in Europe] umbrella, in the fall of 1998.

You see, this is a complex thing and I wanted to give a long answer. Even
this international corps of monitors, this Verification Mission, they
were also involved in organizing the KLA. Before the bombing started we had
this forced diplomacy. The European Community and the U.S. insisted that
their forces come into Kosovo as peace monitors. At the head of these
peace Verifiers was Mr. Walker.

The Verifiers organized the KLA. That's why terrorist attacks by the KLA
increased after they arrived. During that period there was no major
shift of population, whether Albanian or Serbian, though this
international monitor group was laying the basis for migration. They
needed migration to create the impression of a crisis for international
public opinion.

Israel: How did they lay the basis for migration?

Prlinčević: They did it by having the KLA kill some Albanians who were
cooperating with the government.

Israel: The Verifiers, the OSCE Monitors, did all this?

Prlinčević: Yes, they organized the KLA into a more cohesive force so it
could influence events. And they prepared for the bombing. The Yugoslav
government caught some Albanians and some Serbs who were positioning
bombing markers. Those are radio devices that emit signals to identify
targets. We were confused when the OSCE monitors left Kosovo. It should
have been obvious why they left. Their job was done.

Israel: OK, I'm confused right now. I'm not sure about our focus. Are we
talking about the Verifiers being responsible for positioning bombing
markers?

Prlinčević: Yes! That is one thing they organized. I say this in full
responsibility. Yes, OSCE monitors prepared the NATO attack. The KLA is
only a proxy for what NATO wanted to achieve in this geographical area.
All the current political turmoil points to NATO, whether in Kosovo or
Montenegro or the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

Israel: Explain what you mean, please.

Prlinčević: I mean, Kosovo is just one of the points of destabilization
of Yugoslavia. It is manipulated from the US and Europe. And this is not
just what I think. It is obvious.

Israel: I apologize for these picky questions. People are starved for
clarification on these points. Nobody has made things clear.

Prlinčević: I'm grateful for the questions. And again: I am answering
with full consciousness of my responsibility to be accurate.

Israel: I understand. You're an historian of Kosovo.

Prlinčević: Yes, I am, and I want people to know the truth about what
happened here. So getting back to the period before the bombing: the
OSCE was taking steps to produce a migration of Albanians towards
Macedonia and Albania. The idea was to break down the physical barrier
of the border existing between Yugoslavia on the one hand and Macedonia
and Albania on the other. The OSCE wanted to create for the
international community the impression of a humanitarian catastrophe.

Israel: Even before the bombing?

Prlinčević: Yes. The OSCE was actually organizing the complete scenario
for the crisis in Kosovo. Once again, they were trying to push the
ethnic Albanian population to Albania and Macedonia to present the
impression of a humanitarian nightmare. We were surprised that right
before the bombing significant numbers of Albanians began moving toward
the border. We were surprised. But of course, it was planned.

Israel: But there were no bombs yet.

Prlinčević: At that time the KLA had a big influx of reinforcements from
Albania. They attacked road crossings and so on with the intention of
producing total chaos and the collapse of the situation in Kosovo. This was
intended to make a point to all Albanians.

Israel: But in terms of the population movement, why were the ethnic
Albanians leaving? I wish you could just give me some idea.

Prlinčević: That is exactly why I started answering your question
by talking about the culture of the Albanian people. Because they have a
strong clan structure and as part of that tradition, if the leader of
the village says, "Let's vote for this candidate!" they tend to vote for
this candidate, and if the leaders say, "Let's all go!" - they go

Israel: But why would the clan leaders say, "Let's all go!"?

Prlinčević: First of all, a large part of the ethnic Albanians wanted to
return to the situation that existed a hundred years ago, under the
Ottoman Empire, and again during World War II, when Kosovo was under
Nazi- Albanian control. Most of the Albanian population had been won to
this goal by the secessionist movement.

=======================================

Promises from the USA

=======================================

Prlinčević: When I speak of secession you might think of
the Basques in Spain or the Irish in Northern Ireland, but this is very
different. In Kosovo, a foreign Superpower supported the secessionists
for well over a decade. Because of this support, the Albanians were
psychologically prepared to achieve - no, not to achieve, to be given -
secession. As a gift. The secessionist leaders, starting with Ibrahim Rugova,
had promised them, "Do this, do that and the US will intervene and we
will get Kosovo." They had been promising this for years. "Sacrifice
your children by boycotting the schools; sacrifice your health by
boycotting the hospitals; use your suffering to show foreign public
opinion how we suffer under the Serbs, and the U.S. will come to our
rescue."

By March 1999 this political theater had been going on ten years. "The US
will set us free." And of course, many Albanians believed that during
World War II the German Nazis had set Albanians free.

The Yugoslav constitution of 1974 didn't help. It weakened the central
government and thus encouraged those in Kosovo who wanted to return to
the W.W. II regime when Albanian nationalists ruled Kosovo under the
German Nazis and terrorized Serbs, Roma ['Gypsies'] and Jews. After
1974 the abuses against Serbs and Roma increased. This was openly
manifested during the ethnic Albanian riots in 1981.

These were race riots, with Serbs as the targets, both the Serbian
clergy and ordinary Serbian citizens. After that the Americans entered
the picture and magnified the secessionists' political strength ten
times over.

=======================================

U.S. Openly Encouraged Secessionists in 1990

=======================================

Prlinčević: For example, when US Ambassador Warren Zimmerman arrived in
Yugoslavia in 1990 [before the outbreak of the Yugoslav wars of
secession] one of his first acts was to go to Kosovo and open an
Exhibition of architectural works from Chicago. He used this exhibition
to boost the Albanian secessionists.

Israel: How?

Prlinčević: He didn't invite anyone from the Federal Yugoslav
Government or
the Serbian Government. But he did invite Ibrahim Rugova [the main
secessionist leader at that time] and the like.

By snubbing the Federal Government, which represented multiethnic
society, and snubbing those Albanian leaders who opposed secession,
Zimmerman's action had a profound psychological effect

Israel: I can imagine. Everyone notices who doesn't get invited to a
party.

Prlinčević: Yes, and especially in this period, when there was much
ultra-nationalist agitation in Kosovo, to break Kosovo away from Serbia
and to take parts of Macedonia and Bulgaria and link it all up with
Albania. And these were the leaders whom Zimmerman invited. How could
Albanians argue against secession when Rugova could say, "See? We have
the support of the most powerful nation on earth!"

Israel: People often present Mr. Rugova as the good guy, by way of
contrast to the KLA.

Prlinčević: They have the same goal: secession. The difference is over
methods. Rugova always wears a scarf to illustrate the entrapment, or
whatever, of Albanians in Yugoslavia. He says he'll take it off when
Kosovo secedes from Serbia.

The United States, for its own geopolitical reasons, deliberately
encouraged the secessionist tendency among Albanians, used them against
the Yugoslav government in order to destabilize the Balkans.

The fact is that Serbs and Albanians had been living together with some
degree of tolerance for centuries, whenever there was peace. The
United States disrupted this status quo.

=======================================

Serbs and Albanians Worked Together During the
Bombing, Until...

=======================================

Israel: In Priština, during the bombardment, was there any effort to
have unity between the Albanians, the Serbs and other minorities?

Prlinčević: We, as loyal citizens of Yugoslavia, whether Serbs or
Albanians, tried to cooperate and live together, to help each other.

Israel: But what about the majority of the people in Priština? Did the
majority try to help each other?

Prlinčević: Yes. It was the town of intellectuals. We all had flats next
to each other. The children went to the same schools. We lived in the
same apartment buildings.

Israel: So the secessionists weren't strong there?

Prlinčević: Not at first, but then later even in
Priština the Albanians
were sucked into the secessionist camp. This could happen because of
certain cultural traits, deeply rooted in their history. During the
bombing, suddenly they started leaving. And when we asked them, "Why are
you doing this?" they replied, "We have to!"

Israel: Whom are you talking about?

Prlinčević: Professors, managers at stores, retired people, even retired
Yugoslav Army officers who were ethnic Albanian.

==============================

"Sorry, I have to go..."

==============================

Prlinčević: I'll give you an example. My Albanian neighbor was a
Professor. He seemed very much integrated into Yugoslav life. Our
children played together; we were friends, you see. And then, without
warning he packed up and started to leave his flat, to leave Kosovo. So
I said: "Why are you leaving, neighbor?" He said: "Sorry. I have to."
And I said, "Why? We're safe here. Nobody's bothering you. The housing
complex hasn't been bombed. We're all working together." And he said, "I
was ordered to leave." He gave me the keys so I could watch his flat.
Ironically, after NATO took over he returned and then I was forced out
by the KLA gangsters. I gave him my key, so he could watch my flat.

Israel: But who ordered him to leave?

Prlinčević: The leader of his clan.

Israel: Why?

Prlinčević: To prove obedience to the KLA. This was the KLA's national
plan. All loyal Albanians were to leave during the bombing and go to
Albania or Macedonia to show the world how terrible the Serbs were; this
exodus was staged; it was a performance, Hollywood in Kosovo. What is
Hollywood without actors? A large number of Albanians had to perform,
had to actually leave Kosovo. This was not so different from what they
had been doing for ten years, you see, pretending they had been locked
out of the schools when actually it was an organized boycott, and so on.

Moreover, once they were in the refugee camps, the Albanians would be
under the direct leadership of the KLA, which could intensively
indoctrinate them, which it did.

Israel: But why would his clan leader agree to this crazy plan?

Prlinčević: You think it was crazy? This gets us to the heart of the
matter. Between the attacks from the KLA on Albanians who cooperated
with the Yugoslav government and the continuous bombing by NATO,
especially of Albanians who disobeyed the KLA, the KLA had gotten their
message across to the clan leaders. So now the clan leaders ordered
their people to pack up and leave.

Israel: You know, during the bombing, NATO said the Albanians were
fleeing atrocities. We Western opponents of NATO said they were fleeing
the NATO bombing. But you're saying we were both wrong, that the
Albanians weren't fleeing the Serbs or the bombing.

Prlinčević: Let's just say the bombing isn't a sufficient explanation.
If they were just fleeing bombs, why did they have to go to Albania and
Macedonia? Why not to inner Serbia? And what about people like my
friend, who just packed up, seemingly for no reason, and left? The rest
of us, Serbs, Jews, Roma, we were in Priština too. Why didn't we leave?
Did we value our lives less than they valued theirs? No, it wasn't the
bombs. They were afraid to disobey their clan leaders.

But the bombing did play an important role. The KLA served as spotters;
they could direct NATO attacks against hostile Albanians, and this
confirmed for the clan leaders that the KLA had serious power.

It was psychological warfare, intended to reinforce the psychological
crisis among Albanians, a crisis rooted in fear.

The KLA and NATO were telling Albanians: NATO supports the KLA. After
NATO takes over, the KLA will be in charge and if you don't leave now
you will be in big trouble later. There will be no safe refuge.

That's what I meant when I said you need to know something about
Albanian culture in order to understand why Albanians left.

You have to know about blood feud.

=======================================

Blood feud and the Canon of Leke

=======================================

Prlinčević: One book has a great hold over Kosovo Albanians. It's called
the Canon of Lekë Dukagjini. It's a 15th century text that spells
out codes of behavior. It goes into great detail on how to carry out
blood feuds, when and whom it is proper to kill. It lays out the proper
methods to use when killing, rules and regulations, and so on.

And this
Canon is alive among Albanians today, especially since the fall
of communism. This is an intensely tradition-oriented culture. Blood
feud is a constant threat for Albanians. Thousands of people in Albania
and Kosovo cannot leave their houses because they are being hunted; even
a child in the cradle might be marked for death as part of a feud. It is
for this reason that Kosovo Albanian houses are often built surrounded
by high walls and with gun slits instead of windows.

By methodically killing those who refused to support them, the KLA was
striking a deep fear among Albanians: the refusal of one clan member to
obey could lead to revenge against his entire clan. And now the KLA had
NATO bombers to enforce blood feud.

What took me by surprise was how much this affected Albanians, even
intellectuals. It's amazing. Here is a Professor in Priština, very
sophisticated, but when the order comes from his clan leader, who is
perhaps a farmer 100 miles away, the Professor immediately packs up and
leaves for Albania without even considering saying no.

Israel: We didn't understand the KLA. We thought their terror tactics
were counter-productive.

Prlinčević: Well, they knew their own people, their fears, their
traditions. They knew that if they could prove they were deadly, the
clan leaders would fall in line.

Now they live in a society dominated by gangsters. None of this would
have happened were it not for years of effort by the United States.

* "How will you plead at the trial, Mr. Annan?" at
http://emperors-clothes.com/news/howwill.htm
[The (London) Observer quotes an internal UN report documenting the
criminal nature of the Kosovo Protection Corps, set up by the UN]

Note: United States planners were fully aware of the destabilizing
potential of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo as far back as 1982. Here is a
quote from Yugoslavia, a country study, a 1982 book, which is part
of the U.S. Army's "Area handbook series."

In the foreword, Dr. William Evans-Smith, Director of Foreign Area
Studies for American University in Washington, D.C., writes:

"The study focuses on historical antecedents and on the cultural,
political and socioeconomic characteristics that contribute to cohesion
and cleavage within the society."

Here are two quotes from the book:

"Yugoslavia's largest national minority was its Albanian community, in
1981 numbering some 1.6 million, nearly 7 percent of the population.
Most Albanians were concentrated in Kosovo where they constituted
roughly 80 percent of the population; another quarter million resided in
neighboring Macedonia and Montenegro. All told, an estimated one-third
to one-half of all Albanians lived in Yugoslavia - making them one of
the largest potentially irredentist communities in the world." (p. 75)

"Moreover
some demonstrators [in the 1981 Albanian riots] suggested that the
proposed Kosovo republic ought to include Albanians in Macedonia and
Montenegro too. Some extremists even voiced secessionist sentiments
calling for a 'Greater Albania.'" (p. 77)

The book is available at libraries. Here is the
bibliographical information: Yugoslavia, a country study,
Foreign Area Studies, The American university, edited by Richard F.
Nyrop, "Area handbook series," Department of the Army Pamphlet (DA Pam)
550-99, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 2nd ed. 1982.

***

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